Suburbanites! What multiple of your income did you spend on your house? (Houston: insurance, condo)

[Lost_In_Translation]

Originally Posted by predatorprey

Bought 2x income, but had 20% down. So loan was much less than 2x income.

I think what is more important question you and your wife should ask is what is my loan value vs annual income. Don't let that go above 2x income unless you want to live off rice and beans. Don't care what banks say.

Depends on your income. Low incomes this is more true, high incomes need less percentage for luxuries. But it is easy to overextend yourself in any income level if youre not practical and budget conscious.

[trele6]

Right around 2x for me.

[jtothemak]

2.0 based on just my income as we did not count my wife's income, it is so nice having money going into savings and being to live life instead of having to steer at four walls or racking up credit card debt. But of course we bought less than 2000sqft house that is nicely furnished with a pretty yard and does not take days to clean instead of these empty mega boxes so many people buy. So many people are house poor and learned from watching other people making mistakes and one person loses a job and the house get's taken back by the bank.

[Houston321]

Wow, as long as everyone is being honest, you are the exception and not the rule. I see most people spending 4x their gross annual income or more.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Originally Posted by Houston321

Wow, as long as everyone is being honest, you are the exception and not the rule. I see most people spending 4x their gross annual income or more.

For Houston it could be the rule. Plenty of cheap housing.

[Faster10154]

Yeah, I was looking at Sugar Land for example. The median house value is $369,000 and the median income is $113,000. This is about 3.25x the annual household income. Looking at Woodlands, it's about 2.7x.

I'm thinking either 2.5x - 3x now. I would love to stay at 2x but that wouldn't work for a new built home in the FBISD area.

[descovy]

If you are asking about loan size, I wager most of us are 2x But less than 3x income.

My first house was 85k. We scrimped and saved to get an extra $6k together for down payment. When we sold that house, we had $35k to put down on the next house with no effort at all.

In contrast, when I meet people in the above 300k homes, many of them are from out of state where housing is higher. They may have sold their modest $400k home in New Jersey and have enough equity to put down on that $300k mini-mansion in the suburbs.

If this is your first home, it's a lot harder to get that down payment together. When you are "moving up" it is easier. If someone makes 100k, they may get a loan for $250k. Carrying over $70k equity from the sale of their old house, and that's how they afford a $325k house.

Beyond that, buy what YOU can afford. Don't stretch for that next house. Someone is always going to afford more than you anyways, so there's no sense in trying to keep up.

[pdouglas]

1.1

[bs13690]

Two times our income and our mortgage is around 25% of our take home.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by bs13690

Two times our income and our mortgage is around 25% of our take home.

Something else to keep in mind,
I was told not to go over 30-35% of my income on mortgage payments.